Show DETERIORATION IN AMERICAS NEWSPAPERS Ten or fifteen years ago the bait of our city dailies combating what was called sensationalism in the press a practice of magnifying the importance impor-tance of news by startling headlines which gave to a page the appearance of carrying some very remarkable information in-formation when there was really nothing to be told but the rdinary occurrences of the day There grew out of these protests a reform which consisted in giving space and prominence promi-nence of position to matters of news in proportion to their importance and interest to intelligent people Of late there has been in many paper a return re-turn to sensationalism not in the eld form but in a new and a worse one not in headlines but in the deterioration deterio-ration of the old standard of the kind of news proper for publication and the relative degree of importance to be given to different classes of pews An entire class of events which used to be excluded from papera of the better sorV now finds place in some of themand other classes which used to be put in corners and in small type under the head of Grimes and Casualties is now paraded upon the first page with ingenious headings head-ings calculated to provoke ouriceity The doings of legislative bodies and of scientific convocationthe thoughtful thought-ful discourses of famous men the news of social reform and of the intellectual in-tellectual movements of the world and to a great extent of its business affairs are often summarized or omitted altogether to give space for columns about divorce suits elopements church scandals murders mur-ders forgeries bigamies and vice and gossip of all sort Even dailies of an old and higher reputation for respectability respec-tability have fallen into the current and changed their characters Their news pages have become a queer combination ai lawlessness and scandal scan-dal savoring both of the barroom and of the gossipy teaparty TJie Manhattan S |